Update: European Remanufacturing Council launches with a nod to Hollywood

The newly-launched Conseil Européen de Remanufacture plans to represent companies which produce €30 billion of remanufactured products and employ 190,000 people across Europe.

Thursday, 2nd March 2017

The European Remanufacturing Council (CER) was launched at a busy event in Brussels on Friday 27 January. Keynote speaker Walter Stahel, widely regarded as the “grand vizier” who first highlighted the resource savings that could be achieved by extending product life, wished the business-led Council every success. Dr Nancy Bocken from TU Delft presented results from the European Remanufacturing Network (ERN) project and acknowledged the funding support from the EU Horizon 2020 programme. The ERN enabled researchers from across Europe to deliver a comprehensive market study designed to be directly comparable with one carried out in the USA. David Parker from Oakdene Hollins set out the recommendations from the ERN project partners, aimed at enabling faster growth in remanufacturing sales.

The new Council will liaise with the research community in the ERN whilst welcoming member companies from the automotive, transport, imaging, and technology sectors. Other businesses, both large and small, were encouraged to join the Council to assist in building a new generation of remanufacturing innovators and advocates.

The Council's work programme, aimed at global institutions such as the UN, the OECD and the World Bank, aims to increase from 2% to 5% the proportion of manufactured output that achieves an extended life through remanufacturing. The unveiling of the programme had a last-minute plot twist.

"Our ambition is to make remanufacturing a normal part of a product’s life cycle, but before that can happen we need to inspire a new, young generation,” announced Council Director David Fitzsimons.

Fitzsimons revealed that he had been in contact with Jerry Davis, producer of the 2005 movie Robots, and with US-based Blue Sky Studios. For those not familiar with the animated Hollywood movie, it features teenage inventor Rodney Copperbottom who, outraged by the waste of the world’s resources, champions innovation and thoughtful manufacturing practices. Fighting against the ruthless business model imposed by a self-serving company president, he finally safeguards a lifetime supply of spare parts for robots threatened by inbuilt obsolescence.

In the meantime, companies joining the European Remanufacturing Council are being offered a chance to be a part of something more animated than they may have expected.

The European Remanufacturing Council is managed by Oakdene Hollins from offices in Brussels. Further details on the membership fees for businesses wishing to join the Council can be found at www.remancouncil.eu

Oakdene Hollins led the research partners in the European Remanufacturing Network (ERN) project. This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 645984. It was highly successful and the ERN network will continue to coordinate European researchers interested in this topic area.